I’ve always loved ramen noodles. This was born from my days in elementary school when I would run home for lunch to have Mom serve me gong jai mein, the Doll brand of instant noodles. My tastes are now more refined and I prefer non instant forms of ramen.
I had the urge to make these noodles for myself. I put to good use the pasta roller attachment that I got for Christmas. Also the bottle of Koonchun kansui that has been sitting in my cupboard since summer.
Makes enough noodles for 4 bowls
- 2 cups bread flour
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 1 teaspoon Koon Chun Potassium Carbonate & Sodium Bi-Carbonate (kansui)
Batch 1:
Needed an additional 2/3 C water for dough to form together, as it was so dry that it crumbled. Also added another ½ tsp of Kansui but it didn’t turn yellow. I live at 3500 ft. I suspect that may have something to do with it. The noodles had some of the expected chewiness, but still were more like spaghetti than ramen. Next time, more Kansui. The noodles were so dry that I didn’t need any additional flour to prevent sticking.
Batch 2:
Used 1.5 C of water to 3 tsp kansui. Also increased flour to 3 cups. The dough colour was a little more yellow than the last batch. I rolled the sheet on 3, but set the last pass to 4 before using the spaghetti cutter. The noodles were a little thinner, I think I could set the sheet to 5 next time. The noodles were also a little more curly. The taste was more like ramen than the last batch, but it could still use some improvement. I needed to douse the pasta sheet with flour before rolling as this batch was more moist than the last. Also, because of the amount of water, the dough separated into chunks rather than crumbs in the mixing phase. Good thing I have a 800W mixer, my Kitchenaid would not stand a chance with this dough. But it’s pretty good for pasta making.
I cooked the ramen the next day after leaving it in the fridge overnight. The taste actually improved with resting. The consistency is still a bit firm, although it might have been due to under cooking.
I’ll leave this as an unfinished post, as I plan to make more batches and tweak the recipe. Half the fun, is playing with the ingredients.
I followed the directions from this blog.
